1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a vehicle light, and in particular to a vehicle light using a small-sized LED lamp as a light source. The vehicle light can provide a wider illumination area with less illumination unevenness and without using complex lens cuts.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a front view of a conventional lighting unit 90 employing an LED lamp 91 as a light source. In FIG. 1, the lighting unit 90 is composed of the LED lamp 91 and a reflector 92. The LED lamp 91 is installed with its optical axis inclined toward the reflector. Accordingly, the reflector 92 is present in the illumination direction of the LED lamp 91. The reflector 92 is shaped substantially like a sector of a circle (has a substantially “sector shape”). Furthermore, the reflector 92 has a reflection pattern 92a that reflects parallel light beams to form an illumination pattern in front of the reflector 92. (See, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-118408, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.)
Since the outer shape of the reflector 92 is the sector shape, when a plurality of the lighting units 90 are combined with the LED lamps 91 disposed around the center of the combined unit, the combined unit 80 can form the circular shape shown in FIG. 2. A plurality of the lighting units 90 can alternatively be combined with the positions of the LED lamps 91 alternating from side to side, to form the combined unit 81 having an elongated shape (such as a rectangular shape), as shown in FIG. 3.
In the configuration of the conventional lighting unit 90 as shown in FIG. 1, the spread end portion of the sector shape of the reflector 92 is located farthest from the LED lamp 91. In general, light amount may be reduced in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. Accordingly, the farthest portion of the sector-shaped reflector may project less light than the portion near to the center (the portion adjacent to the LED lamp). This trend may be enhanced because an LED lamp can generally emit light with the highest luminous intensity in the optical axis direction thereof and the luminous intensity may decrease as the emission direction deviates from the optical axis. As a result, even when a plurality of lamps 91 are combined, the lighting unit 90 itself may provide uneven light distribution.